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sabdep's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
andrew61's review against another edition
4.0
Carmel and karina grow up in a small North England town and are from similar working class backgrounds, and both struggle with mother's who are respectively demanding on their daughters in different ways. They form an unlikely relationship when both start at the local Catholic primary school before they both obtain a rare scholarship to the grammar school 3 bus rides away.
The book tells us about their childhood but also is a story of what happens when they both start university in London in 1970 and find themselves exposed to very different young women as they live in what appears to be the halls of residence from hell.
Hilary Mantels storytelling is wonderfully evocative of the time and place and particularly the mind of young women developing from children to adults with their preoccupations with sex, food, study, and each other. Her prose is crafted so well and I was drawn into the world with caustic one liners peppering the pages such as her describing her boyfriend 'he looked just what he was and nothing else: a prop forward from a northern grammar school, a family man in the making. In laterblife, I should think he has learnt to carve '.
The book is not however just a bitter sweet coming of age tale and the stories of carmel and her new friends build to a dramatic finale and as with the stark contradiction in carmel and karina's physical changes so much more is occurring within them as individuals.
The book tells us about their childhood but also is a story of what happens when they both start university in London in 1970 and find themselves exposed to very different young women as they live in what appears to be the halls of residence from hell.
Hilary Mantels storytelling is wonderfully evocative of the time and place and particularly the mind of young women developing from children to adults with their preoccupations with sex, food, study, and each other. Her prose is crafted so well and I was drawn into the world with caustic one liners peppering the pages such as her describing her boyfriend 'he looked just what he was and nothing else: a prop forward from a northern grammar school, a family man in the making. In laterblife, I should think he has learnt to carve '.
The book is not however just a bitter sweet coming of age tale and the stories of carmel and her new friends build to a dramatic finale and as with the stark contradiction in carmel and karina's physical changes so much more is occurring within them as individuals.
bookpossum's review against another edition
4.0
I was gripped by this book and could hardly bear to put it down. The characters are so real (and clearly there is an element of autobiography in the central narrator). I don't want to put in any spoilers but suffice to say you get the feeling that it isn't going to end happily, and it doesn't. Hilary Mantel is a powerful writer and I found this book very satisfying indeed.
alisonburnis's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Carmel spots a picture of her old friend Julia in the paper one morning and immediately is transported back to their first year of university, when they were roommates in Tombridge Hall together. Karina, Carmel’s sort of friend and neighbour from home, lived there as well, and a collection of other girls rounded out their circle: Claire and Sue, Protestants of some sort to Carmel and Julia’s lax Catholicism, and Lynette, glamourous and kind, and Karina’s roommate. The girls explore love and freedom in the 1960s in London, as well as class and money - the things that differentiate them. Carmel is poor and unsupported by her family, and her thrift degrades into anorexia.
This was a strangely nostalgic novel to me. I went to university fifty years after its setting and yet it was very familiar (possibly because the residence I lived in was built in the 60s and hadn’t changed at all. It was torn down a few years ago). There’s such a joy and carelessness in those first teenage years of “being on your own” that Mantel captures so well here.
This was a strangely nostalgic novel to me. I went to university fifty years after its setting and yet it was very familiar (possibly because the residence I lived in was built in the 60s and hadn’t changed at all. It was torn down a few years ago). There’s such a joy and carelessness in those first teenage years of “being on your own” that Mantel captures so well here.
jdelf's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
wanted to dnf so bad but i didn’t so i serve financial compensation…respectfully i just think this genre is not for me
egoubet's review against another edition
5.0
LOVE this book. Like many of Mantel's books, it is haunting and you just can't pull yourself away. It is dark, but not forcefully so. She makes the characters come to life, I feel like I 'know' them, like I would recognize them walking down the street. And she does all of this in, what, 200 pages?
vanityclear's review against another edition
4.0
Hilary Mantel is one of those writers you can always trust to take you somewhere worthwhile. I never regret spending time in her brain, even if I do have doubts initially. She dispels them, in the end, though she'll never quite dispel your sense of unease.